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May 19 The Zero Boys & Hired to Kill - A Nico Mastorakis Double Bill

Nico Mastorakis has had a fascinating life. If you ever get the chance, look into it a lot deeper than we have time or space to do so today. He's Greek and throughout his career he has been a Journalist, photographer, music producer, concert promoter, radio personality, TV creator, TV station owner and ultimately 80s and 90s cinematic schlockmeister.

Arrow Video has released three titles by Mastorakis this year:

The first was Island of Death, which is notorious for content that has been deemed "shocking" but, for me, just seemed to be a tedious and, fairly unimaginative, story about two holiday makers on a Greek island who just went around pushing the bounds of usual decency. It wasn't my kind of film, way too shocking just for the sake of being shocking and pretty dull along with it.

Luckily, as his career moved on, Mastorakis seemed to move away from just pure exploitation and turn more to high concept horrors, thrillers and action films that always blur the genres together, while also heaping on some joyously confused surreal elements.

The second film is The Zero Boys which I had never heard of but instantly wondered, why have I never heard of this film?

SYNOPSIS & REVIEW:Starring kick ass, genre star, "Scream Queen" of the day Kelli Maroney (Night of the Comet, Chopping Mall), with an appearance by Martin Sheen's younger brother Joe Estevez and featuring an early and enjoyable score from the legendary Hans Zimmer (Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy), The Zero Boys' high concept can be summed up in one sentence - A young group of survival game enthusiasts come head to head with crazy murderers in a cabin in the woods.

Part slasher part Rambo, The Zero Boys is a simple but fun and, in parts, effectively scary genre mash-up that benefits from some strong camera work and impressive production values despite the, probably, low budget.

The film is paced well, lit well, shot well and even acted pretty effectively by a cast of largely lesser knowns or unknowns. What you realise, however, watching any film that's meant to feature young people but is clearly written by middle aged men, is the dialogue, especially earlier in the film is awful. The sequences where we are meant to be getting to know the characters, before the plot begins to play out, the conversations are pretty awkward and stilted.

The other trait that is common to all the Mastorakis films I have seen so far is that explanations of either who people are and why the stuff that's happening is happening to them, is not important. Not that it entirely matters. I summed the plot up in a sentence and the film is pretty good, for what it is, definitely one I'll put in again and again, but the first act of any Mastorakis movie is a little like an easy jigsaw puzzle: Just because it only has a handful of pieces, it still takes a little time to get to the whole picture.

I really enjoyed The Zero Boys, it is right up my street. It has a strong set up, a decent execution and doesn't waste time with a lot of extraneous, unneeded waffle. There's some kids with guns, a couple of mental hillbilly types with machetes, arrows and booby traps and in the end we'll see who's left. It's well worth a watch.

BLU-RAY REVIEW:The first thing to say is the film looks and sounds fantastic. Apart from a little grain in the lower light scenes, the image quality is superb.

The extras are pretty strong too. The interviews are short but informative and it's great to see how Arrow go out of their way to get some of the cast and Mastorakishimself back for a chat.

I didn't get round to listening to the commentary but from just a couple of the stories Kelli Maroney tells in her interview, I bet it's fascinating.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

Brand new 2K restoration of the film, approved by writer-director Nico Mastorakis

SYNOPSIS & REVIEW:Hired to Kill, again, has a very simple, high concept, premise. A lone mercenary (Brian Thompson) must put together a team of kick ass women, pretend to be a fashion designer and his models, to try and free a famous rebel leader and, in the process, take down an evil dictator/leader (Oliver Reed) in South America.

It's generic 80s/90s action plot #43.

The thrill of this film should be seeing the ridiculously faced and muscular Brian Thompson take the heroic lead for once and show off his skills. Add to that seven women with special action talents, Oliver Reed wandering around twirling his ludicrous moustache and rolling his eyes and a few explosions, this film really should be a marvelous time for all.Why then is it so desperately dull?

All the elements are there but instead of focusing on the action, presumably because of the budget or the fact that the actors themselves couldn't really do a lot of their own action, the film instead focuses on the developing of Thompson and his female mercenaries pretending to be fashionistas. Which is just ludicrous.

What little pleasure there is watching Brian Thompson, who has a face like enraged boar jostling for space in small rubber glove, camping it up and swishing about soon wears thin as a third and fourth photo shoot montage comes around.

When not absurdly trying to convince Oliver Reed he's anything but a man sent there to bite small animals in half and/or punch through drywall with his genitals, Brian Thompson and his group of action ladies are being called upon to act and deliver dialogue. This is another big mistake the film makes. That's not to say Thompson couldn't be good, given the right part, but his one liners are weaker than the straps on one of the model's swimwear and any expository dialogue he's given is more wooden than King Arthur's several attempts to finally get a round table right without power tools and equally as tedious a process.

In parts this movie plays like an Andy Sidaris picture without the low rent Benny Hillisms and the surreal flights of fancy (more's the pity).

It does, however, have some redeeming features. The reveal of Brian Thompson's character and his treatment of an alarm clock is a joy, an early, ridiculous training montage is pretty special and the action finale has its enjoyable moments. Unlike The Zero Boys though, I don't think Mastorakis got the balance right here.

BLU-RAY REVIEW:The film, again, looks excellent, with good colours and little to no grain. The sound is also excellent. The only extra I had time to watch was the interview with Brian Thompson which is wonderful. Similar to the people we get to interview here on the site, extras like this really give you the chance to see interviews with actors that don't normally get the limelight. They often have much better stories and a far more in-depth insight into the business than the A Listers, quite frankly.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

Brand new 2K restoration of the film, approved by writer-director Nico Mastorakis

Fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by critic James Oliver

DETAILS:

Region: Free

Rating:18

Cat No: FCD1301

Duration: 91 mins

Language: English

Subtitles: English SDH

Aspect Ratio:1.85:1

Audio:Stereo 2.0

Discs:2

Colour

SUMMATION:For me The Zero Boys remains the best purchase out of the three Nico Mastorakis films currently on offer from Arrow. I really hope they do a special edition of Nightmare at Noon/Death Street USA, my personal favourite but if you're a genre film fan then I would say The Zero Boys is the one for you. Hired to Kill is a curiosity that sadly doesn't live up to its potential. It's really for completetists of 80s and 90s action cinema only.